Wednesday, March 9, 2011

My little sister has lived in Texas, Virginia, and now back in Texas for years now, and I have not had the chance to go and visit her sweet family once. Thankfully she has come back to Utah several times, and we get to see them then, but going to see her in her own home turf was something I have wanted to do for too long. So when she announced her third baby was on its way, and that her kind husband had to leave her for a week for his job, she was near tears. She was sick and miserable from her pregnancy, and tackling two darling little girls alone all week was enough excuse for me to put the bug out that I wanted to go and help.

Well "helping" turned out to be a darn good excuse for my cute mom to come and go with me, even arranging to fly to Vegas to pick up me and the two boys that I could take, and having a week of fun, good food, lots of needed cousin time for Kaylee and Max as well as Allie and Mitch, and seeing a little bit of Texas. And as an extra bonus, we even got my darling little brother Kyler to come and see us for a few of those days too!

We got to be there on Valentines Day, and the day was FULL of love. My nieces were so excited to give my boys "valentines" first thing in the morning, and for the first time ever that I know of, they were eating candy before the 8:00 hour. The kids got to make heart shaped pancakes for breakfast, graham cracker LOVE houses in the afternoon, and we ate a heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's for dinner. (why don't we have a Papa Murphy's here??!!) The day could not have been more fun. We took a walk to a little park nearby their house, and we thoroughly enjoyed being together. It was such a perfect day, and although I would have loved being with my honey on the day of love, it was special to get to celebrate it with my sister and mom, both of who I look up to and love dearly...and four darling children who were excited to celebrate as much as they could. (aka: eating as much candy as they could stuff in their bellies without their moms caring!) I took pictures of Kaylee and Max's finished houses, because you would NOT believe how much love and time they both put into their creations! I thought Jackson was the only perfectionist in my little family, but Max proved to be a close second. He took his time, as did Kaylee, and they were very proud of them all week long. Max desperately wanted to bring his home, until my smart sister asked if they could keep them at her house because she liked them so much, and that Max was welcome to come back and visit his house any time. (we're in trouble if he actually remembers that one day Aub!)We left chilly weather in Las Vegas, so when we arrived to 70's in San Antonio, it was heaven! We took full advantage of walks, parks, and even the zoo. The weather was absolutely beautiful.The day we picked to visit the zoo started out a lot chillier than we thought it was going to be, even raining for the first hour we were there. But as promised from the weatherman in San Antonio, the sun came out and shined and gave us a great day visiting the animals. Mitchell LOVED the zoo, which was no surprise since he's such an animal lover, but all the kids had a great time too.

There were too many pictures to choose from, and they were all my favorite. The beauiful Japanese garden area was outside the zoo and was amazing to walk through.

My sister had mistakenly told Max about this awesome craft that Kaylee loves to do the first day, and it nearly killed him that it was a few days later that they actually did it. The painted white pieces of bread with food coloring, and then toasted it and ate it. It made me wanna throw up myself, but Max absolutely loved it.

By the time my cute brother arrived, I think the kids were a little tired of entertaining themselves, definitely bored of us moms, and a very fun and energetic uncle was exactly what they needed! My poor brother. He was sweating within minutes of being attacked from all four of them. Thank goodness he's such a good sport.We had a great day in downtown San Antonio, first going to a play based off the infamous book, "If You Give a Pig a Pancake." It was entertaining and all the kids enjoyed it. Mitch liked it for the most part too, unless they screamed loudly (mostly from excitement) and then he bawled. We visited another park, took a boat ride down the Riverwalk, and even walked through the Alamo. We didn't have more than one day downtown, but what we saw was amazing! I was shocked that all the kids lasted through all that, but they were great troopers. Note for the entire trip though: Mitch was the ONLY child who was willing to walk as much as we would let him! The rest of them fought over the stroller constantly, which was a bit painful in all aspects. Walking with a one year old that wants to go where he wants to go and at his own pace can be very waring on the nerves after awhile! But what a fun city! Wish we could have spent more time there, but it gives us more to look forward to on another trip. We of course, HAD to eat Blue Belle ice cream every night we could. If you're not an ice cream lover, I'm pretty sure Blue Belle might change your mind. There's only one place here in Vegas that I know of that carries a few flavors, but in Texas, you have dozens of choices to pick from! It's good we were only there a week, because the two different flavors we picked were delish, and I would have went and picked out two more if I had the time. Some of us enjoyed every lick of it...literally. This is the last picture that I have to post about the trip. If anyone knows our Mitchell, this is a popular position for his arm. He sucks on his arm as much as he needs, wants, doesn't need, yes, a little too much. Allie apparently thought it was funny or looked good or something. Funny girl.